


Tags

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Gangsta. (Manga)
Genre: Blood, Childhood Friends, Developing Relationship, First Aid, Fluff and Angst, Guns, Gunshot Wounds, Inline with canon, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Minor Character Death, Panic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-01 21:49:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4035787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The tags are never quite warm." Yang is nearly as constant in Delico's life as the tags around his neck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cool

The tags are never quite warm.

Delico doesn’t usually think about it. The chill rectangles of metal are a constant in his life, as unavoidable as breathing or the need for sleep, and even when the weight of them collects painful and icy in winter cold he knows how to hunch his shoulders to keep the metal from bumping close against his chest and chilling pain against his skin.

It’s Yang who offers a solution, their first winter at the orphanage. Delico isn’t thinking about his motion, the dip of his shoulders and the curve of his spine to match Erica’s absentminded slouch, but Yang is watching him sideways, eyeing the unconscious curve he’s making of himself for a long moment before he speaks.

“Why are you doing that?” A hand comes out, casual contact bumping Delico’s shoulders, and he nearly jumps. Even after months with Yang it’s hard to get used to the gentleness in his touch, the human contact without any of the implicit aggression Delico usually encounters. Yang’s hand draws back, his shoulders tipping away, and when Delico looks up he’s at a safe distance again, looking instead of touching to make his point. “You don’t look very comfortable.”

Delico has to think about what he’s doing before he can make sense of the question, has to realize his shoulders are curled in and start to straighten them before he can think about the familiar weight of the tags hanging from his neck and the cold weight of them catching on his skin.

“It’s the tags.” His voice is level, deliberately calm like he always makes it when he talks about the proof of his blood. “They get cold in the winter.”

There’s a pause, silence growing comfortable and easy between them. Then:

“Here,” Yang says, and he’s tugging his too-big mitten off with his one hand, reaching out to close his fingers around the chilled metal hanging from the other’s neck. Delico nearly flinches again, but there’s no contact this time, just flushed-pink fingers hiding the shine of the tags. The chain feels lighter without the usual weight, the absence eerie and faintly unsettling, and Delico frowns, shifts his shoulders while Yang keeps his hold on the metal for a long minute. By the time he lets go the warm color of his fingers has gone pale, his hand chilled enough that he pauses to blow warm breath over it before fitting his mitten back on. “Better?”

Delico blinks, stalls for a moment before his thoughts catch up to Yang’s actions. Then he rocks back, deliberately straightens his shoulders, and when the metal bumps against his chest it lacks the chill bite it had before, carries a little borrowed heat from Yang’s hand.

“Yeah.” He stares at Yang for a moment, trying to frame words around the press of emotion in his chest. “Thanks.”

Yang’s smile is careful, slow to catch but widening as it goes, and by the time his grin is stretched wide to catch in his eyes Delico is smiling too, tentative with the sincerity of the expression.

The tags still aren’t warm. The weight is still pressed against Delico’s neck, the chain hanging against his skin an everpresent reminder of the truth that Yang’s help can never relieve. But  _cool_  is not  _cold,_ and when Delico straightens his shoulders it’s a little easier to take a breath, like the air has gotten faintly warmer along with the tags.

He’s grateful to Yang for the heat.


	2. Warm

Delico is nineteen when he almost dies.

It’s not from carelessness. He’s always careful, never demonstrates the recklessness he sees sometimes in some of the other guards. He and Yang have built up a reputation for staying calm under pressure, for avoiding unnecessary risks and the injuries that accompany them. They make a good team; Delico is grateful to Yang’s support, the steady reassurance of the other man at his back, where he’s always been. Yang is such a constant presence Delico has come to take him for granted, to count on his support with a level of trust he couldn’t give to another if he tried. It’s been years in the making, dozens of shouted warnings and reflexive protection combined with all the times Yang hasn’t flinched away, all the uncounted moments of fingers brushing Delico’s shoulder or hair or the bare skin at his wrist without the usual instinctive flinch that comes with human contact.

Delico’s counting on that here too, trusting Yang to cover his back as he progresses down the alley in pursuit of their target. Their footfalls are nearly in sync, the sound closer to a single pattern than it is to two, two pairs of eyes scanning their surroundings, but it’s dark, the dim lighting insufficient to illuminate the space around them, and when the target moves he’s fast, reflexes quick enough Delico would think he’s a Twilight if he didn’t know better. Delico swings his gun up, the force of his inhumanity telling him  _remove the target_  before his mind concerns itself with self-defense, his finger tightening on the trigger even as his thoughts calmly note the muzzle of the target’s gun, observe the flash of light spelling death for him in the broken-open moment before the bullet hits.

It’s to Yang’s credit how quickly he reacts. There’s a force at Delico’s shoulder, an impact he thinks at first is the bullet hitting; then the bullet  _does_  hit, a burst of numbing pressure enough to spin his weight sideways and knock his balance away, and he drops to the street as the target crumples to Delico’s own successful shot. Delico gasps a breath, vision white and shuddering, shocked in a distant way that he  _can_  breathe, that his lungs are still working, that the blinding pain is radiating from his shoulder instead of his chest, and then he pieces together Yang’s voice, shouting noise it takes him a moment to form into words.

“Delico,  _Delico_ ,” he’s saying, just his name over and over, and Delico blinks and his vision unblurs, steadies into the familiar shape of Yang’s features hovering over him. “Delico, fuck man, talk to me, hey, say something.”

Delico opens his mouth, an attempt to obey the command on Yang’s tongue, but he can’t remember how to speak, can’t think of what words he would say anyway. Then there’s an arm sliding under his shoulders, pressure urging him up, and the pain is immediate, jolting through him and dragging a groan of reflexive agony from his throat.

“Shit,” Yang is saying, and they’re moving, Delico’s shoulders are pressing against the cold of the alley wall and there’s pressure at his shoulder, force bursting red-hot pain into his blood. He makes another sound, low and animal-raw before he can close his teeth on it, and Yang is speaking, still, babbling words with uncharacteristic speed. “I know, I know, I’m so sorry, I gotta stop the bleeding.”

Delico keeps his mouth shut for a span of heartbeats; he doesn’t trust himself to speak, is afraid if he opens his lips that agonized inhuman wail will break free again, stealing his rationality with the wash of reflexive pain. Each pulse of blood in his veins is agony, every breath an eternity, but each one is proof of his survival, another moment alive, and that’s important even if he doesn’t remember why right now. Yang is talking but Delico doesn’t hear, can’t listen to the details of the words; it’s enough to keep his mouth shut, to clench his teeth on sound and shut his eyes to vision while the other man tightens pressure at his shoulder, ties off a knot with numbing tightness against Delico’s shoulder. Then Yang’s hands move, a little of the pain subsides, and Delico dares to open his lips, to gasp a shuddering breath of relief as he blinks his vision back into clarity.

Yang is close, closer than he expected, eyes wide and dark and mouth visibly trembling. He cracks into a hysterical laugh as Delico watches, ducking his head for a moment even though it does nothing at all to hide the damp that spills from his eyes over his cheeks.

“God, Delico,” he says, blood-damp hands coming to catch at Delico’s neck, thumbs pressing steadiness against the other’s jaw. His voice is shaking, thrumming so hummingbird-fast Delico can barely parse the words. “Are you okay?”

Delico swallows, wets his lips. Yang’s hands are very warm against his skin. “I’m okay.”

Yang’s head comes up. His eyes are wet, shining bright with tears to match the damp catch of his smile on his lips.

“Thank god,” he says, and he leans in and his mouth presses hard against Delico’s.

Delico’s heart stutters. Yang’s lips are soft against his, gentle in a way all at odds to the catch of the bracing hands against his face, and there’s the faint catch of salt against his mouth, dry-chapped lips sticking together from the texture of tears clinging to them. Then Yang tips his head to get closer, parts his lips to lick want up against Delico’s, and Delico’s blood lights up, his hands reaching out to catch at Yang’s jacket. The movement hisses pain out from his injured shoulder, the hurt stalling the movement and bursting over his tongue in a whimper, but his other hand completes the action, makes a fist at Yang’s clothes, and then he’s kissing back as much as being kissed, his mouth flushing hot along with all his skin.

With the rush of heat into him, even his tags feel warm against his chest.


	3. Hot

Yang never suggests that Delico take the tags off.

It would be an easy solution to counteract their constant chill, the cold-metal bite of the edges against Delico’s skin. Behind the closed door of Yang’s bedroom there’s no one here to see their absence, no one to call him out on the dangerous noncompliance and no one to carry tales of it outside. But Delico never moves to strip the weight off, and Yang never suggests it, and Delico is more grateful to that silent acceptance than he is to anything else. He’s not sure he has the words for what the tags are, doesn’t trust his throat to work on the sounds even if he did know how to explain that the metal is a symptom and not the cause, that their weight is nearly comfortable, now, as familiar as the always-knowledge of his own cursed blood in his veins.

But Yang never asks, and so Delico never has to speak. Instead they move together in near-total silence, punctuated only by the damp catch of Yang’s lips against Delico’s cheek or the huff of Delico’s breathing as Yang strips his undershirt up over his head to toss it aside and forgotten. There’s friction instead of words, the bump of Yang’s shoulder against Delico’s arm and Delico’s fingers tracing out the barely-there curve of Yang’s waist down to his hip, until by the time they are tangled together on the bed there is nothing between them at all, just Yang’s bare skin and Delico stripped down to flushed body and cool tags.

Yang starts with those. He always does, once the distractions of clothing are done away with. It’s been years, now, since Delico has spoken of it, has made any reference at all to the chill rectangles perpetually stealing his warmth, but it doesn’t matter. It’s still there between them, the shared memory given life and form until it’s as if Delico had just answered Yang’s question, as if the air against them was winter-chill instead of hot and humid with rising summer heat. The air is hot but Yang’s mouth is hotter, his lips pressing a lingering path against Delico’s throat and along the curve of his neck to his shoulder, diagonally against the rhythm of his heartbeat. He pauses, there, lets his motion stall so long Delico wonders far in the heat-haze of his thoughts if he won’t just stop, let his path end against the adrenaline-rushed pace of Delico’s breathing. But he doesn’t, resumes his movement after long seconds, and Delico knows where he is going, can feel his body going tense with expectation even if he voices no kind of protest. He’s not sure if it’s fear in him or hope, pleasure or pain, but either way Yang keeps going, tracing against Delico’s skin until his lips catch the edge of metal and his tongue darts out to slide slick and hot over the top of the tags.

Delico groans. They are quiet, as a general rule, silent in some unspoken understanding between them and the far more explicit awareness of thin apartment walls and everpresent neighbors. But this draws him out of composure every time, arches his back towards Yang’s lips and tightens his hands into fists on the bed, until by the time Yang gets the tags actually in his mouth Delico can’t see straight for the thud of his frantic pulse. The tug against the chain at his neck is as effective as lips at his skin would be, flushes his blood uncontrollably hot in his veins, and Yang is still sucking against the tags, dragging gently at the necklace on which they are strung, as Delico’s hips come up of their own accord to press hard against his thigh. Even then Yang lingers, doesn’t take the invitation of the pressure or that of the moan in Delico’s throat right away; he sucks at the metal instead, pressing it close enough Delico can hear the tags click against his teeth, and by the time he lets them slide free of his lips the metal has gone summer-hot, warm and radiant against Delico’s skin.

After that, the physical intimacy is just a consequence, a result of the press of hot at Delico’s chest from Yang’s lips. Delico is already gone, worked pliant and submissive as if it were his own self held gently at Yang’s tongue, and Yang is just as careful with his body as he is with the far sturdier tags themselves. His fingers are gentle, pressing slick and slow as he eases them inside the other, and Delico stares hazy inattention at the ceiling, lets all his focus wrap itself into the tension of his fingers skating down Yang’s back. They don’t speak; after all these years together they barely need communication at all, and what they do need can be told just as easily with sighs and fingertips as with sound.

It’s nice, the quiet. Delico always appreciates it, the room falling so still he can hear the flutter of his heartbeat in his throat and can make out the shifting pattern of Yang’s breathing as it accelerates. There’s the slick sound of the other’s movements, too, the shift of the mattress under them when he moves his knees and the wet catch of skin-on-skin as he draws his fingers back to push in deeper, deep enough that Delico’s shoulders tense and his thighs quiver with the heat of Yang’s touch. There’s an exhale over him, a drawn-out sigh speaking as much appreciation as words would, and Yang shifts his fingers, presses in against the other so Delico’s vision flashes white, so his breath escapes him in a rush. His knees go wide, his cock twitches untouched, and his hand comes up, presses the hot weight of his tags into his skin like he can absorb them straight into his chest to lie alongside his heart. It’s that that he holds, the pressure of metal imprinting inverted letters against his skin, while Yang slides shaky fingers back and away, while he fits his knees between Delico’s and his hands braced over the other’s shoulders.

“Do you want…?” he asks, the first words in minutes, as he shifts his weight sideways, frees a hand to reach between their hips. His fingers brush against Delico’s cock, the friction jolting electricity up the other’s spine, but Delico’s shaking his head before the contact comes, reaching up to spread his fingers wide across Yang’s shoulder instead of down to wrap a hold around himself.

Yang doesn’t ask again. He just nods, the movement quick with understanding and confirmed expectation, and when he moves his hand again it’s to close against himself instead, to hold his cock steady as he looks down to watch what he’s doing. Delico doesn’t look down himself; it’s enough to watch the reaction in Yang’s face, the wide-eyed anticipation and the set of white teeth against a chapped lip, the unconscious habit throwing him back in time years until he looks like he’s twenty again, like they’ve never done this before. It flutters in Delico’s chest, the ache of familiarity and nostalgia bearing down on him like physical weight, and he’s choking on air, struggling to catch a breath for the heat of the tags at his skin and the pressure of affection trapped between his palm and his lungs.

Yang doesn’t see. He’s focused on what he’s doing, his eyebrows drawn together with complete attention, and he doesn’t see Delico’s lips tighten, doesn’t see the smile that tugs at the corner of the other’s mouth as he fits himself in place and starts to slide forward. It’s an easy movement, friction without any suggestion of pain, and Delico gasps a lungful of remembered air, his free hand sliding up and around to curl around Yang’s neck, to fit his fingers against the short-cropped dark of the other’s hair.

“ _Delico_ ,” Yang moans, a tiny soft sound, lets now-unneeded stability go so he can tip forward and press his hand to Delico’s hip instead. His fingertips are warm, hot like the damp metal against Delico’s palm, and then Delico turns his head to catch Yang’s mouth at his and whatever words might have been spilled -- compliments, affection, questions -- are lost in the heat of their lips. It’s easier in the quiet, with the air hanging so still around them Delico can hear the catch of Yang’s fingers when he shifts them against the sweat on Delico’s skin, when the loudest sound is the faint damp slick of Yang’s cock sliding forward into him. Even their breathing is muffled, falling together into the sound of one set of inhales instead of two, and Delico’s thoughts are going quiet, too, all his usual strategy and reflection and inner monologue falling out of focus and out of importance at once, like the rhythmic sound of Yang’s movements is the most important thing in the world. It’s guiding his heartbeat, taking Delico’s pulse faster in time with the slow increase in Yang’s pace, and they stopped kissing at some point, fell into a pattern of near-silent inhales as Delico hooked his legs up around Yang’s hips, as Yang fit his wide-spread fingers against the small of Delico’s back instead of bracing at his hip. They’re closer like this, the support of Yang’s hand pressing Delico in flush and sticky against Yang’s stomach, but Delico still doesn’t reach down for himself; he doesn’t need to, can feel the heat from the tags under his palm spreading wide through his chest to meet the surge of radiance spilling out into his hips. He feels like he’s glowing, like even his dark eye must be shining bright, and when he shuts his eyes it’s in some futile attempt to hold back the light that is pouring into his blood.

Yang makes a sound against his mouth, his exhale catching into the third moment of deliberate sound he has made since they fit together on the bed. It’s not a name, it’s not a word; it’s just a sound, something that is a little bit of a moan and more of a whimper. It doesn’t matter what it is; it falls into the quiet of the room, forms a harmony with the slick of their bodies coming together, and Delico takes a breath that is no less deep for being silent. His back arches, his body tipping itself in close to meet the stretch and push of Yang into him; then something clicks into place, whatever he was reaching for falls willingly into his grasp, and he goes radiant, mouth open on shuddering breaths as he comes untouched across his stomach. It catches at Yang too, the continued rhythm of the other’s motion finally dragging a whine from Delico’s throat, and he’s just sagging boneless with satisfaction when Yang gasps for air and digs his fingers in against Delico’s spine. It’s enough giveaway, the tension in his touch, and Delico pushes his hand up, cradles his fingers against the back of Yang’s head, takes a breath and reaches for the coherency he left behind when Yang’s lips slipped over metal.

“Yang,” he says, careful and whisper-faint. “I lo--” and Yang’s groaning, shuddering himself into orgasm a moment before Delico can finish the sentence. He’s hot in this too, spilling into Delico to match the lingering borrowed heat of the tags at the other’s chest; it makes Delico whine, a breathless note of appreciation and overstimulation at once, like he’s made of ice and protesting the danger Yang’s skin presents to his existence. His thoughts are disconnected, dragging apart under the catch of Yang’s fingers at his hip and the helpless gasping inhales Yang is taking against his shoulder, but his hand is still flat against his chest, the imprint of his tags burning into his skin like a brand.

He welcomes the heat.


	4. Cold

The wind is cold.

It cuts across the rooftops, slices through the night-dark air unhindered by the protection of buildings or the refuge of walls. By the time it tears against Delico’s hair it’s like ice, stripping him down to frozen chill.

Delico doesn’t move away. There’s no point, no purpose to taking cover or to buttoning his shirt or to seeking out warmth. His head is bowed, the weight of his thoughts too much to hold upright. His neck is bare, the constant press of the tags against his skin absent in a way that would be uncanny if he were feeling anything at all except the bone-deep emptiness replacing the blood in his veins. He can’t feel his fingers. The blood coating his hands and splattered up his wrists has gone frigid, too, the heat of life it once carried long since long to the unavoidable bite of the air.

It’s still warmer than he is.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Once.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4246065) by [RubyFiamma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyFiamma/pseuds/RubyFiamma)




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